Forever Shadows
by FalloutGirlInc
Summary: This story is based off my original character I have played with since I was little. Also known as my Pokemon trainer Persona. This is her journey through the world, through hardships and friendships, the Dark Pokemon master.


"Every child awaits the day to reach the age of ten and become a Pokemon trainer. I wasn't one of them. Orphaned at the age of three I just wanted to have parents. Every year passed and I begged for parents, tried to get them to notice me but they never did. By the time I was ten rather than run to get a Pokemon I just ran. Ran as far as my legs could carry me, little did I know running from the orphanage would run me into another life. Run me into a life I never thought I would have. That's where my story began."

The woods were dark, only the light of the glowing full moon overhead could light her path through the shadows. Twigs snapped around her, howls echoed in the distance but still she ran powering herself forward. Every sound, every shadow was terrifying. Anything could happen to her this time of night away from the orphanage but Raven could stand it no more. Branches scratched at her pale skin, ripped the blue ribbons from her ebony hair as she crawled away from footsteps behind her. Letting out a scream she felt something grab her shoelace and ripped her shoe free from her foot. Clambering to get back to her feet she tripped over a tree root and stumbled down a hill into a larger bush. Whatever had been chasing her was still following though, she couldn't stop running now. Struggling against the branches of the bush Raven felt the sharp thorns cut into her face, her arms, ripping her dark blue shirt until she came out the other end battered and bruised.

It was still dark, still too dark for her to make anything out? Where was she? Heart raced in her chest, pounding in her ears. Looking around she could see eye shine everywhere, hear sounds everywhere. A loud hoot rang up in the tress, a flap of wings fluttered down near her head forcing her to duck. Keep running, she had to keep running. Those footsteps were still behind her. Up ahead was a small clearing where the moonlight light it up perfectly. Not a shadow was cast there from the towering trees nor a single monster to be seen. Once she was close enough to the clearing Raven leaped forward sliding into the grass. Hands reached out for anything she could use to defend herself, a rock a stick, anything. Taking up a broken branch in her hand Raven got back to her feet spinning around to see if anything would jump from the forest and attack her. "LEAVE ME ALONE." She screamed and swung the branch hard. From the shadows of the forest all eyes vanished back into the forest and the sounds calmed to a soft song of the night. Raven dropped to her knees panting, her arms and legs shaking with exhaustion. She had sat there for hours before leaning against the branch and falling asleep.

By the light of morning the young girl opened her eyes seeing a strange blur before her. As she came to the blur shaped into a small young houndour holding a blue shoe in it's mouth. Thinking back on the night before Raven jumped up and held the branch up high causing the small houndour to leap back and hold it's head down low. "Hey, that's my shoe you little thief." The houndour jumped back again and dropped the shoe into the clearing before backing up more. "Are, are you giving it back to me?" Raven asked moving forward slowly. "Thanks." Once she got close enough to grab her shoe the houndour turned tail and ran off into the woods. "Hey wait, come back, I wasn't going to hurt you." She tried chasing after him but he had ducked away and hidden. "Yeah, I know how that feels, oh well." Raven moaned and put the branch over her shoulder in case she would need it to fight off some wild Pokemon. Lily who ran the orphanage always said Pokemon could be your friends like the Jinx that helped her keep all the children in line. However Pokemon could also be dangerous, especially if you didn't have a Pokemon to defend you. Raven had known this risk before running off into the forest while everyone was sleeping but it had been a risk she was willing to take. If no family ever came to her in the orphanage then she would go find her own family.

She would just have to find that houndour later and thank him when she ran into him again. Sitting down in the grass Raven put her shoe back on and tied it double knot this time so it wouldn't fall off so easily, or get pulled off as easily. "There we have it. Now if I could just find a little something to eat." She was in the woods, there had to be plenty of berries out here right? Taking in a deep breath Raven ventured back into the forest that had frightened her the night before but this time with the sun out it was rather, well beautiful. Above her sunlight shimmered in through the leaves casting a beautiful glow above her. Bug Pokemon crawled around hiding from the wild pidgey in the area and every now and again she could see a rattata scurrying over the ground with berries in their mouths. So she was right, there was food in the forest. Naturally there had to be to support so much Pokemon life. Not only were there a great number of Pokemon species here but they all looked so healthy and happy. It was a shame she didn't have a pokeball or two. At least having one cute friend would have been nice. If she could catch any pokemon it would be, well she didn't know. Pidgey was cute but so was vulpix and growlith. That houndour had been pretty cute too, seemed friendly as well.

Too bad she wasn't a pokemon trainer, most got started when they were ten but well she wasn't really in the sort of place to become one. No one from the orphanage was ever a pokemon trainer before. If they got stuck in the orphanage too long they eventually just went out and did boring jobs like work at power plants or construction. Raven wasn't one of those types, she wanted a real family with a real future, one far away from Lily no matter how nice she had been to her over the years. Still it didn't matter now, so many children had left the orphanage but never her. Lily always made it harder for her to be adopted, always put her in the back or timeout when someone came and Raven never did cause that much trouble. She was better off this way, better off alone.

Following a path many pokemon seemed to take Raven found herself in a little patch of berry bushes. A few wild pokemon were gathered around sharing the bounty paying no mind to the little girl wandering around in their territory. Though the pokemon were wild Raven trusted them, more so than she did other people. Quietly she walked up to a bush sitting down next to a rattata and a caterpie. Grabbing a berry she stuffed her face feeling so hungry after last nights run. All around her wild pokemon stopped eating and watched the young girl eating the berries and crying to herself. She realized for once she was truly alone, no Lily to look out for her, no Jinx to keep her safe, no friends, just no one. Taking another berry off the bush Raven bit in to it sniffling and watching the curious pokemon who still sat there, almost trusting her back, sensing her sadness.

They all went back to eating, eyes darting up to her from time to time while they shared their breakfast together. It never dawned on Raven at her naive age that wild pokemon seldom sought comfort with a human but in her case she was just like them, afraid. Once Raven had eaten her fill she stood up and bowed politely to thank the pokemon for sharing with her. "Thank you all, I wish you all a good day." With branch in hand she quickly moved back from the pokemon and their bushes wandering further into the woods. Eventually there had to be a road and where there was a road there were bound to be people. Hopefully they wouldn't just take her back to the orphanage. Then this would all have been for nothing. Each step she took made her feel as she had the night before, something or someone was following her. Hopefully it wasn't a monster waiting to eat her. Not all pokemon were pleasant, some were dangerous and some were truly dangerous to children.

Humming a little tune to herself Raven used the branch as a walking stick now flipping over leaves and hitting rocks to see what treasures may have been hidden under them. Nicky at the orphanage use to say these woods were haunted, at night you could hear the ghost howling with the wind, sometimes see it moving through shadows. The very thought made Raven shiver, no there must be better things to think about out here. Dark was so far away from now, she didn't need to worry about it now, the sun was up, everything would be okay. The sound of a twig snapping behind her made Raven tense up and look around, was it the ghost come to eat her? No, they only came out at night, it must have been something else, maybe a stantler. Yup, they were big, they could make a lot of noise. Then in the distance came the howl, Raven could feel the hair standing on end, oh no it was the ghost. He'd come back to finish the job since she had eluded him last night.

Another howl moved through the air sending a chill up her spine, that wasn't a ghost. Hoisting the branch up she ran towards where she could now hear yelping and a low growl. Breaking through the brush Raven saw the houndour who had brought back her shoe trying to fend off a flock of spearow. Seems he had wandered into the wrong part of the woods and so had she. Swinging the branch she tried to frighten them off but the bird pokemon turned on her pecking and scratching. "Leave him alone." Raven screamed closing her eyes and bending down over the houndour who was laying on the ground panting, wounded from an already harsh battle. "It's okay, I got you." She threw the branch down and picked up the injured pup. Though he was young and small he was still very heavy and hard to carry. Raven had to cradle him in her arms and run quickly with the spearow close behind screeching and scratching. Their long talons pulling at her hair. "Hold on."

Raven slid down a hill seeing a little hole dug out under a large tree by some burrowing pokemon. Ducking her head from another aggressive attack to the face Raven ran for the burrow first throwing the injured pup into the moist dirt and then sliding in after him. The spearow circled around diving and clawing, scratching at her back until they could no longer reach her and flew away. With eyes closed and face pressed against the dark fur of houndour she listened to the flock as they moved along. Their heavy wings beating against the tops of the trees. Houndour whimpered trying to lick his bleeding paw and pinning his ripped ear. Raven placed a hand on his shoulder and tried to comfort the wounded pup. "It's okay houndour, you'll be safe now. I'll take care of you." Running her fingers through it's silky fur the pup turned it's head to look at her. At first he growled making her want to run from the burrow but the more Raven stroked his shoulder the more the houndour calmed down.

"I thought houndour were suppose to live in a pack. Where's your pack little houndour?" Raven asked a bit curious as to why this one was all alone. The houndour looked up at her and pinned his ears back giving her a teary look. "Yeah mine too. I mean, I don't have a pack either. I guess that makes us both orphans then." Houndour perked his ears forward watching her with more fascination now. "It's pretty dangerous to be out there all alone. Maybe we could be our own pack and look out for each other?" Houndour raised his head a little more seeming to pay more attention to her than before. "Then we won't have to be alone anymore." Closing his eyes houndour licked her face, it made Raven giggle, she hadn't ever had her own pokemon before. "Okay okay, I take that as a yes. Hmmm, I can't just call you Houndour now can I. Well you are dark like shadows but no Shadow is a girly name. Your face sort of looks like a skull too, maybe you are the ghost that haunts these woods." Raven joked, her certainly looked scary, that was if you didn't know what he was. In the dark you just might mistake him as a ghost. "I know, that's it Phantom. How do you like that?"

Phantom gave a nod of his head and looked back up at her with glowing eyes. "I like it too, hello Phantom, I'm Raven pleasure to meet you."

Phantom stood up holding his wounded paw off the ground and bowing his head. "Ahooo."

Raven laughed again looking over her new companion. At least if the forest really was haunted now she had Phantom with her. Together they could keep all the ghosts away.

"Life use to be so simple back then just the two of us, Phantom and I could always rely on each other, it's all we ever had. Orphans of the world, when no one else was there for us we found each other. How could we have known back then what sort of adventure the two of us would go on? We didn't but I always knew every day before Phantom had felt so empty. Every day with him, well it seemed so perfect. We proved pokemon and humans could have more than just friendship, we had kinship, siblings of chance. Siblings for life."


End file.
